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Thinking About Hotels in Brooklyn: Location

11/12/2024

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Periodically I get clients who ask me for advice on choosing a hotel in Brooklyn (or for a visit to Brooklyn), or ask me what I think of their hotel choice. I respond with my candid opinion. (I don't get kickbacks!)

Obviously, you pay more for a nicer room in a better equipped hotel. Or you might have hotel points you want to deploy.

My main advice regards location, and access to nearby public transportation and proximity to shopping/restaurants, as well as access to other attractions in Brooklyn.

Sure, if you want to spend money on taxis/Ubers, that's fine, but New Yorkers typically rely on the subway or bus, and like to be able to walk to at least some restaurants and stores.

My advice can't guarantee you a great room or a true bargain. Please read reviews of any hotel to recognize what previous visitors liked and disliked.​ But I can help you plan to make the best use of your location.

Please recognize that simply lodging in Brooklyn does not position you to reach every attraction in Brooklyn. I once had clients who chose a nice hotel in Williamsburg, and planned to visit the Brooklyn Museum, twice. They had to take costly, and slow, Ubers, because there's no easy connection via public transportation.

Had they stayed in Downtown Brooklyn or Gowanus, it would have been much easier. A lot of places in Brooklyn are also easily accessible from hotels in Lower Manhattan, in the Financial District, given good subway access. Those may be relative bargains.

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​The screenshot above is from this map I've created of hotels in Brooklyn. I think of hotels as located in three main clusters: Downtown Brooklyn (blue); Gowanus (dark maroon); and Williamsburg (green).

Downtown Brooklyn gives you access to transportation--both to Manhattan and deeper in Brooklyn (like Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Museum).

Some hotels are better located than others. I often recommend the Nu Hotel, the southernmost, because it has the quickest access to charming tree-lined streets and good shopping/dining in the adjacent neighborhoods of Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens.

The New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge does offers good access to walk the bridge, but it's farther from neighborhood Brooklyn. Still, as the borough's largest hotel, it's always easy to get a ride from there.

Note: DUMBO has Brooklyn's most luxurious and expensive hotel, the One Hotel Brooklyn Bridge (orange). It offers great access to the waterfront (including the ferry to Williamsburg and Greenpoint), but may not be well positioned for a long visit if you want to see other parts of Brooklyn, since it's not near the subway.

Gowanus is an industrial/commercial area with lower-cost and more basic hotels, but it offers fairly quick access, by foot, to the residential neighborhood of Park Slope, with good shopping and dining, and, ultimately, Prospect Park. The R train is nearby.

Note that some hotels in Gowanus, and in Sunset Park (not listed here) and Long Island City in Queens (ditto), have been converted, at least temporarily to shelters. So the Holiday Inn Express in Gowanus is not at this moment accepting guests.

Williamsburg is Brooklyn's hipster zone, with a cluster of hotels in the north, near McCarren Park and a nightlife zone, a few hotels near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (check reviews for noise), and one new hotel (the Moxy), along Bedford Avenue in the Southside.

Williamsburg, along with adjacent neighborhood Greenpoint, offer lots of things to do/see/eat, and Williamsburg, thanks to the L train, offers good access to neighborhoods in Manhattan along 14th Street (Union Square, East Village, West Village). 

Note the hotels I've marked in gray. The two close to Flushing Avenue are far from hipster Williamsburg but close to the Hasidic (Orthodox Jewish) section. The one on Broadway is not as remote, but still a long walk to most places visitors might want to see.

Also note three Greenpoint hotels in yellow. Greenpoint's a great neighborhood where I enjoy leading tours, but it's at the northern tip of Brooklyn. If you're focused on Greenpoint, fine, but the two main hotels (not the Franklin Guesthouse) are a good walk from the subway and the prime shopping and restaurants.

Also note three Bedford-Stuyvesant hotels in the center of the map. Two, marked in gray, are along busy, noisy Atlantic Avenue, and are less expensive hotels. Bed-Stuy shopping, restaurants and tree-lined streets are within walking distance, but not immediately nearby. The Akwaaba Mansion, on the other hand, is a lovely real bed-and-breakfast on a prime block, so a good location for visitors focused on Bed-Stuy.

I've marked, in black, two hotels worth a cautious assessment. I'm not saying they're bad hotels, but their location is remote, so they're best for people who have reasons to be nearby.

Of course, different budgets mean different choices. The Holiday Inn in Downtown Brooklyn will be more expensive, and offer more amenities, than the Holiday Inn Express in Gowanus (labeled, confusingly, New York-Brooklyn) or the Holiday Inn Express in Sunset Park. The Gowanus location, if/when it's no longer serving as a shelter, is a far better location than Sunset Park.

A note on AirBnB: there are fewer such locations available, but, beyond obvious questions about price and quality, they come with the same significant questions about location, including proximity to transit and shopping, as well as--unlike with most hotels--sometimes issues of safety.

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The 2024 Presidential Election Results in Brooklyn

11/12/2024

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The map below is a screenshot from a larger interactive map from The CITY, a nonprofit news website. Most of Brooklyn, as with New York City, is blue (Democratic), but a not insignificant, and growing share is red (Republican), or at least redder.

What areas vote Republican? Well, notably enclaves of Orthodox Jews, including three Hasidic neighborhoods and a large Modern Orthodox area, which are culturally conservative.

Also, Brooklyn's Chinese communities and "Russian" (former Soviet Union) communities, as well as some of what would be called "white ethnic" (notably Italian-American) areas.

Many neighborhoods, including ones that voted for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, appear somewhat less blue, as shown in this map suggesting a shift toward Republican candidate, and now President-elect, Donald Trump. Some of that was less an increase in Republican votes than Democratic voters staying home, as this NY Focus article explains.
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New York Like A Native: Energetic, eclectic tours of Brooklyn & beyond. Experienced guide. Personal service.
  • Home
  • Brooklyn tours
    • Brooklyn 101 tour >
      • Brooklyn 202 tour
    • North & west of Prospect Park >
      • Fort Greene & Clinton Hill tour
      • DUMBO, Fulton Ferry, Brooklyn Heights tour
      • Park Slope tour
      • Viewing (and Walking) Brooklyn Bridge (+ More)
      • Atlantic Avenue & Downtown Brooklyn
      • Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens tour
      • Red Hook tour
    • Williamsburg & north Brooklyn >
      • Williamsburg tour
      • Greenpoint tour
      • Bushwick and East Williamsburg tour
    • Central Brooklyn >
      • Bedford-Stuyvesant tour
      • Crown Heights tour
      • (Not Just) Victorian Flatbush tour
      • Sunset Park tour
      • Green-Wood Cemetery tour
    • Coney Island and southern Brooklyn >
      • Coney Island Webinar, Virtual Tour, & Resources
      • Coney Island (& Brighton Beach) tour
      • Bensonhurst tour
      • Bay Ridge tour
    • Jewish, food, and Xmas lights tours >
      • Jewish Neighborhood Tours
      • Food, dessert, ice cream tours
      • Dyker Heights Christmas Lights tour
    • Moving to Brooklyn/layover tours >
      • Moving to/Studying in/Retiring in Brooklyn
      • Airport/Cruise/Layover tours in Brooklyn
    • Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park/Barclays Center
  • Beyond Brooklyn
    • East Village tour
    • Jackson Heights tour
    • Lower East Side tour
    • Long Island City tour
    • Ridgewood tour
    • Sunnyside & LIC East
  • About your guide
  • Fees/Schedule/FAQ
    • Fees for private tours
    • Schedule
    • FAQ
    • Vehicle and custom tours
    • Tours for classes
    • Resources on Brooklyn
    • How to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge
    • Picking a Hotel in Brooklyn
    • Picking an AirBnB in Brooklyn
  • Contact me/Book
  • Blog